


Immunocompromised

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Allergies, Cats, Domestic, Flash Fic Challenge, Gen, M/M, Polyamory, Post-Canon, kind of bittersweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:59:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: Jounouchi takes in strays. Yuugi is allergic. And Seto would like to pretend this situation is distant and unfamiliar in a way it just isn't.





	Immunocompromised

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a flash fic prompt from [Vesperbat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperbat/): battleshipping + a cat.

“Yuugi’s allergic.”

“Huh?” Jounouchi said, from where he was sprawled out on the couch.

His green jacket mewled in agreement.

“Hn.” Seto shook the sour taste out of his mouth. “Yuugi’s allergic to cats.”

“I just don’t see what that has to do with anythin’,” Jounouchi specified.

The his jacket rustled again, having found a life of its own. It sprouted an ear at the crease above the zipper and meowed loudly.

“You are stuffing bits of fish down your shirt,” Seto said.

Jounouchi paused, holding a flake of halibut up to his collar.

“Sure you’re not hallucinating?” he challenged.

The room turned icy cold. Only Jounouchi’s jacket seemed incapable of reading the mood.

Jounouchi’s eyes widened, haunted.

“I didn’t mean that.“

“No,” Seto said firmly. “You _didn’t_.”

Jounouchi’s eyes were still wide, and had now moved to being pitifully sad in the most obnoxious way.

Seto groaned. “You have to get rid of it once Yuugi gets back next week.”

Jounouchi brightened immediately, ever the optimist. “So that means you’re fine with her for now?”

He immediately ripped his jacket open.

The cat was small with uneven tufts of grey fur. It looked startled, thrust out into the open. It looked even more startled when Jounouchi hurled it at Seto’s chest.

Seto caught it, instinctively maybe, and it dug its claws into his shirt. A few pierced his skin, and he winced.

“Great. You hold onto her while I go get her some water and a nice heap of blankets!”

…

When Yuugi arrived home the following week, he insisted it would be no trouble to keep the cat, which had become a fixture of the household. He kept insisting, until his entire face turned puffy red, and he could barely breathe, and Seto had to call up Mazaki of all people to come take the thing away. She had carried it off in a pink and white checkered blanket, and it mewled softly after Yuugi and Jounouchi, who saw it off in tears.

“This is why I didn’t approve of this!” Seto hissed at Jounouchi, as they put Yuugi to bed with benadryl and hot tea and kisses on his forehead.

Jounouchi sniffled. He nodded. But he also took his phone from his pocket. He laced an arm around Seto’s back and showed him. He flipped through the pictures of Seto drifting off to sleep, and working on his laptop, and grousing as Jounouchi wasted time with dinner - at all times with the cat curled up against his side.

And Seto wouldn’t say it aloud. But he had felt it before, and now he recognised it again. The feeling of missing someone.

 


End file.
